N.B. vcdimager and vcdxgen ONLY work with the versions of libiso9660 and libcdio that they were compiled against, and if you have a different version it is probably easier just to add the right version rather than recompiling vcdimager.
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So you run Puppy and have video that you want to put on a Video CD? Here are your options:

1. You could try installing Wine and one of the (probably large) Windows frontends to VCDimager - e.g. "VCD wizard". I don't know if they run in Wine, but I'm guessing some should.

2. (the easiest way) Use Pburn (here). Since version 1.8.0 Pburn has had basic (S)VCD support. Just make sure your Pburn TV standard settings are right (PAL/NTSC), add your videos to the burn list, and Pburn will used ffmpeg to convert the video to the right format and vcdimager to write the disc image. There will be no menu or fancy PBC features, and each video will be one chapter. VCDimager (I presume just the vcdimager binary) will be in Puppy 4.1, otherwise you can get it here

N.B. The transition between VCD chapters is not seamless - there is a glitch, so if you want a seamless transition you need to instead have one long video with entrypoints (see below). This is not a vcdimager bug, it is a feature of the VCD standard

3. (I'm not sure there is any advantage in this option) Manually convert the videos to the right VCD format with ffmpeg e.g. for a PAL VCD

Code:

ffmpeg -i /path/input_file.flv -target pal-vcd /path/output.mpg

, and manually use vcdimager to create the disc image. IIRC you can't make a menu this way.
VCDimager also includes a set of utilities (here) for doing other things like (IIRC) extracting video from a VCD and checking files for VCD compatibility. Personally I've never found them useful.

4. (the way with the most control) The vcdimager binary and other utilities mentioned in 3. are the original command-line based programs, but VCDimager also includes newer XML based programs to do the same things but with more options. If you can find a use for the utilities, they are here, otherwise you probably just want vcdxbuild (here) the "xml" equivalent to the vcdimager binary.
vcdxbuild requires a special xml file as input, with instructions for the files to put on the CD, menus, entrypoints, playback control etc. It builds a .bin VCD image and a .cue file, and you can burn it with something like

To get a proper xml file, you can either work off a template (I have a script below to generate one I like), or use vcdxgen from the XML utilities pet above. I never figured out how to use vcdxgen to do anything other than generate a basic file, but maybe it can. If you find out that it does, please let me know
You can do all sorts of complicated things with the xml file if you use a little Google to educate yourself

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Someone out there might find the script below useful, although you may want to tweak it to your own needs:

Background:
I got a video capture card with hardware MPEG encoding to make it easy to transfer concert videos to VCD. Because I don't want a glitch between songs in the concerts, I use VCD entrypoints instead of chapters. The downside of this is that back and forward navigation on the VCD don't work properly, as if you start at one entrypoint, they will take you to the same places even if the video has played past the next entrypoint.

What it does:
I wrote this script to generate a simple .xml file for a VCD with a single video and multiple entrypoints. (It would be fairly straightforward to modify to have multiple videos as separate chapters, each with multiple entrypoints).
You need to put the entrypoint times in seconds (normally starting with 0; you can have decimals as well, but the entrypoint may not end up exactly where you specify anyway, as it has to be put at the location of a special marker) in a text file, each on a new line, WITH NO EXTRA INFORMATION, and use it as the argument for the script. You will then need to fill in the fields at the top for the title, publisher and source file locations. The script produces a playback control so that if you press the "track number" of an entrypoint, it will go there, "back" and "forward" work subject to the limitation described above, and return (menu on most DVD players) gives you a menu screen. I was using the original (Windows 3.1) Philips Video CD 2.0 Toolkit http://www.icdia.org/sw_pc/vcd2tk.zip to make mpeg stills for the menu and the still I put at the end of the video for 60 seconds. I'll try to post the easiest linux way to make mpeg stills
I think you could replace them with videos, or you can remove the relevant bits (remember to make all your entrypoints timeout to end then).
You also get the files for the CD-i application with the Video CD Toolkit - you'll either need to do that and fix the paths, or delete that whole "folder" part near the top of the xml file. It is unlikely that you will ever come across a CD-i player anyway. Also, you'll need to delete that and change the "vcd version" if you do an svcd.

Code:

#!/bin/bash
# vcdgenxml
# Script to mostly automate the creation of an xml file for a single .mpg for vcdxbuild.
# Requires a list of entrypoint times (in seconds) as input.

To make proper VCD stills, e.g for menus, install Mjpegtools (thanks Plinej) and follow the instructions at http://www.mir.com/DMG/stills.html.
Note that with recent versions of ppmtoy4m you need to add this new parameter as well

But check the table at that link, because it is slightly different for SVCD or NTSC.
I don't think the file extensions matter.
You don't need y4mscaler if you make your stills at the right resolution to start with - I typically combine four screenshots of the movie running in mplayer with X11 video output and the nozoom option (this way it retains the correct aspect ratio - otherwise be prepared for your images to look too wide when you play the VCD.
Beware of getting things cut off at the edges of your TV screen as well _________________If you have or know of a good gtkdialog application, please post a link here

You are trying to use a file that is not SVCD compatible. The audio is the wrong frequency and I think that message about the picture size might mean the video is not compatible either. You need to use ffmpeg or something to convert it into an SVCD compatible video.
My first post included what I think is the correct ffmpeg command to convert the video - but I can't remember if I've ever burned a VCD from files converted by ffmpeg. Just make sure you convert it to the right TV standard (PAL or NTSC)

BTW (not relevant to bill's question) one thing I just discovered recently is that linux software does not seem to be able to navigate using VCD entrypoints, so if you want to navigate a disk in a linux computer you need to use chapters and tolerate the glitches OR I remember seeing something about a freeware Windows player that even supported menus, and I think may have worked in Wine... but I can't find it now _________________If you have or know of a good gtkdialog application, please post a link here

Hi disciple,thanks for your help.Here is a stosselavi2mpg.png that seems
the first step and I don't notice any complaints so far.Oh and by the way this is Puppy 4.1 K2.6.25.16. Where do I go from here ?

As you were disciple I spent the wee hours of the morning romancing Pburn and I finally got myself lined up to burn a 39 minute,NTSC VCD which turned out a treat thanks to Sigmund Bergland..I am now running Puppy 4.1.1 Probably Pburn was working in 4.0 ,4.1 but due to my inexperience or the box I am running I hadn't had much luck in my endeavors.Now that I am sorted,I can't see at this point to use anything other than Pburn.It just worked ! Yippee ! cheers

Most of the download links in the first post were dead, so I have reuploaded the packages to my dropbox:
http://db.tt/2L0V0DT8_________________If you have or know of a good gtkdialog application, please post a link here

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